Wednesday, August 26, 2015

EXTRA: Cop quips – view really puts them in their own little world at times

I
can claim a “credential” that a lot of city residents like to cite as evidence
of their authenticity as native Chicagoans – I had two uncles (one retired, the
other deceased) who were officers within the Chicago Police Department.

Yet
I’m not about to claim to have any unique comprehension of what goes through
the minds of those people who take the oath to “serve and protect” the people
of their community, yet often have the knack of being out-of-touch with certain
segments of society.

I
DON’T DOUBT they’re in touch with the way certain people feel; and that those
people LIKE the idea that the police are on their side protecting them from
everybody else.

But
it’s not exactly a universal concept that everybody feels safe when they see
the flashing lights of a “Mars bar” atop a squad car.

So
it shouldn’t be a shock that a pair of stories turned up Wednesday involving
the Chicago police that would make it seem that certain officers do their jobs
to reinforce their own racial hang-ups.

If
anything, these stories become so prevalent that we almost become immune to
them – as though we’re not sure we should have ever thought the police were
protecting “us” on a daily basis.

THE
CHICAGO TRIBUNE reported that the police department’s Internal Affairs began an
investigation into an officer who got caught on video making a disparaging
remark about Michael Brown – remember him?

Supposedly,
the officer made a traffic stop and wound up arguing with a man, who said he
didn’t trust the police. That man then mentioned by name the individual who was
killed by police last year in Ferguson, Mo.

To
which the officer supposedly said, “he got what he had coming” and that Brown’s
death was “deserved.”

Whether
expressing that opinion violates the professional standards we expect of a law
enforcement officer is what the department’s investigators will have to
determine.

ALTHOUGH
I ALREADY can envision the people who will come to the officer’s defense – he merely
said something, He didn’t act in a harmful way.

For
all I know, many of these people probably agree with a thought that people in
confrontations with police are worthy of force – because they wouldn’t be in a
confrontation if they weren’t doing something wrong!

We’ll
have to see how harsh, if at all, the Chicago police wind up handling this
incident. Let’s not forget that the officer who killed Brown was ultimately found
by St. Louis-area prosecutors to have done nothing that would warrant criminal
charges. This is much less.

This
incident isn’t alone in the news on Wednesday. For the Chicago Sun-Times
reported its own story about a police officer potentially being too open in
expressing his thoughts.

IN
THAT CASE, the officer supposedly threatened a colleague and made racial
remarks. But as the newspaper reported, the Cook County state’s attorney’s
office dropped the charges that officer faced.

It
seems that a third officer to who the officer actually expressed the threats
has died. There goes the witness whose credibility would have been put on the
stand in any trial that might have someday taken place.

So
now, there’s a police officer who has been cleared – although it seems he was
on disability leave back in 2011 when the original “threat” was made.

Although
the idea that an officer is off-the-hook for “racially derogatory” comments is
bound to offend many of the same people who think that the other officer should
be punished severely for opening up his mouth about Brown.

I am a Chicago-area freelance writer who has reported on various political and legal beats. I wrote "Hispanic" issues columns for United Press International, observed up close the Statehouse Scene in Springfield, Ill., the Cook County Board in Chicago and municipal government in places like Calumet City, Ill., and Gary, Ind. For a time, I also wrote about agriculture. Trust me when I say the symbolic stench of partisan politics (particularly when directed against people due to their ethnicity) is far nastier than any odor that could come from a farm animal.